Detecting tumorous breast tissue in a thermal image

ABSTRACT

What is disclosed is a system and method for detecting cancerous tissue in breast tissue using a thermal image. In one embodiment, the present tumor detection method involves selecting a region of interest in the thermal image to be processed for breast cancer screening. Thereafter, a percentage of pixels p 1  in the selected region having a temperature T pixel   1 , where T 1 ≦T pixel   1 ≦T 2 , is determined. A percentage of pixels p 2  in the selected region having a temperature T pixel   2 , where T 3 ≦T pixel   2 , is determined. A ratio 
               p   3     =       P   edge     /     P   block             
is also determined, where P edge  is a number of pixels around a border of a suspected tumor within the selected region, and P block  is a number of pixels in a perimeter of the selected region. A decision fusion rule R, as more fully disclosed herein, is utilized to determine, based on these determination whether tissue within that region is cancerous, or non-cancerous, or is suspicious of being cancerous.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This patent application is related to concurrently filed and commonlyowned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/668,178, entitled: “SoftwareInterface Tool For Breast Cancer Screening”, by Krithika Venkataramaniet al., which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention is specifically directed to a software interfacetool for breast cancer screening and a method for detecting cancerousbreast tissue in a thermal image of the breast.

BACKGROUND

Breast cancer incidence rates are relatively high in women. Nearly 1 in8 women in the western world and nearly 1 in 11 women in India will havebreast cancer. In the western world, it is the leading cancer in women.In India, for example, it is the second after cervical cancer. Earlydetection is key to survival as the mortality rates are high foradvanced stages. Mammography is considered the gold standard for breastcancer screening. Screening for breast cancers are commonly done viamanual detection of a lump in the breast tissue and/or by an in-officemammography exam followed by human interpretation of the image createdduring the examination. In the mammography exam, the subject is subjectto highly personal physical contact and a procedure which many subjectsfind discomforting. In subjects with dense breast tissue, the exam maynot be as effective in spotting malignancies as for other subjects.Moreover, the equipment required for mammography is relatively large andrelatively expensive. Since mammography is an x-ray machine it cannot beused at homes without supervision. The x-ray radiation itself may resultin cancer. It is also not effective for younger women due to the densebreast tissue. There is also some evidence that the physicalmanipulation of the breast tissue during mammography could rupture themalignant cysts, thereby increasing risk of spreading the malignantcells to other tissues and into the subject's blood stream.

Thermography is an emerging alternative non-invasive and non-contactscreening method for breast cancer detection. Thermal imaging capturesthe infra-red emissivity from the human body in the 7-10 μm wavelengthrange. Thermal imaging devices are useful for the detection of thermalactivity in breast tissue due to a tumor's growth being enabled bycausing new blood vessels to grow disproportionately throughangiogenesis in the area of the tumor relative to surrounding tissue.This increased biophysical activity beneath the skin surface associatedwith tumor growth results in a higher metabolic rate which, in turn,results in an elevated temperature in that tissue. This appears as ahotspot in a thermal image containing that tissue. Recently, interesthas been rekindled in thermography as a breast cancer screening approachwith the improvement in thermal camera resolution and technology.

Trained radiologists and thermographers look for these abnormalities inthermal images to make a determination whether tissue is cancerous or issuspicious of being cancerous. If so, the subject may need to undergoadditional tests, such as sonomammography followed by cancer diagnosisthrough histopathology by fine needle aspiration cytology or tissuebiopsy. Thermographers and radiologists are increasingly demanding morepowerful visualization software interface tools to assist them.Moreover, since medical practitioners trained in thermography are notreadily available in rural areas in emerging markets like India,automatic screening tools will help open up these market for softwareapplications for breast cancer screening and detection.

Accordingly, what is needed in this art are increasingly software toolswhich enable subjects as well as medical practitioners to manually orautomatically analyze a thermal image of an area of breast tissue forthe presence of cancerous tissue.

BRIEF SUMMARY

What is disclosed is a software interface tool for breast cancerscreening that is designed for medical professionals to view and analyzesuspicious regions for hot spots and hence facilitate a determination ofwhether identified areas of breast tissue are cancerous. Isotherm mapsare constructed at designated temperature resolution. Maps are displayedon the screen. Point & click on the isotherm map can extract temperaturevalues of pixels within the region covered by the isotherm contours.Also provided are isothermic views at different viewing angles which isadvantageous for visual detection. Additional functionalities forhotspot selection, cropping, zooming, viewing at different angles, etc.are also enable by the present software interface. The present softwareinterface further utilizes a tumor detection method which is alsodisclosed herein. In one embodiment, the present tumor detection methodinvolves selecting a region of interest in the thermal image to beprocessed for breast cancer screening. Thereafter, a percentage ofpixels p₁ in the selected region having a temperature T_(pixel) ¹, whereT₁≦T_(pixel) ¹≦T₂, is determined. A percentage of pixels p₂ in theselected region having a temperature T_(pixel) ², where T₃≦T_(pixel) ²,is determined. A ratio

p₃ = P_(edge)/P_(block)is also determined, where P_(edge) is a number of pixels around a borderof a suspected tumor within the selected region, and P_(block) is anumber of pixels in the perimeter of the selected region. In a mannermore fully disclosed herein, a decision fusion rule R is then utilizedto determine whether tissue within that region is cancerous,non-cancerous, or is suspicious of being cancerous.

Features and advantages of the above-described software interface tooland tumor detection method will become readily apparent from thefollowing detailed description and accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing and other features and advantages of the subject matterdisclosed herein will be made apparent from the following detaileddescription taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, inwhich:

FIG. 1 shows an example thermal imaging system capturing a thermal imageof an area of the breast of a female subject;

FIG. 2 shows one example embodiment of the software interface tooldisclosed herein;

FIG. 3 shows one example selected region of interest substantiallycomprising the right and left breasts of the subject in the image ofFIG. 2;

FIG. 4 shows the subject's left breast having been selected as a regionof interest;

FIG. 5 shows a region of interest substantially comprising the subject'sleft breast having been manually selected by a user;

FIG. 6 shows example displayed 2D contour lines of the regions ofinterest of FIG. 3;

FIG. 7 shows example displayed 2D contour lines of the regions ofinterest of FIG. 5;

FIG. 8 shows an area of the subject's left breast in the contour imageof FIG. 6 having been visually enhanced;

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram which illustrates one example embodiment of amethod for detecting tumorous breast tissue using a thermal image; and

FIG. 10 illustrates one embodiment of a functional block diagram of aspecial purpose computer system for implementing various aspect of thepresent software interface tool of FIG. 2 and the tumor detection methodshown and described with respect to the flow diagram of FIG. 9.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

What is disclosed is a software interface tool for breast cancerscreening and a method for detecting cancerous tissue in a thermal imageof a breast.

NON-LIMITING DEFINITIONS

A “subject” refers to a living being. Although the term “person” or“patient” may be used throughout this disclosure, it should beappreciated that the subject may be something other than a human suchas, for example, a primate. Therefore, the use of such terms is not tobe viewed as limiting the scope of the appended claims strictly tohumans. FIG. 1 shows an example human female patent 102.

A “thermal imaging system” is a camera with a lens that focuses infraredenergy from objects in a scene onto an array of specialized sensorswhich convert infrared energy into electrical signals on a per-pixelbasis and outputs a thermal image comprising an array of pixels withcolor values corresponding to surface temperatures of the objects in theimage across a thermal wavelength band. FIG. 1 shows a thermal imagingsystem 100 capturing a thermal image 101 of a female subject 102 which,in turn, is communicated to a workstation via a wireless transmissiveelement 103, shown as an antenna. Although the subject in FIG. 1 isfemale, the subject/subject may be male. The thermal imaging system canbe any of: a single-band infrared camera, a multi-band infrared camerain the thermal range, and a hyperspectral infrared camera in the thermalrange. Specialized processors inside the thermal camera associate pixelcolor values with different temperatures and provide output color valuesof each pixel in the resulting thermal image. The resolution for athermal camera is effectively the size of the pixel. Smaller pixels meanthat more pixels will go into the image for the same region of interestgiving the resulting image higher resolution and thus better spatialdefinition. Because the amount of black-body radiation emitted by anobject increases with the object's temperature, variations intemperatures of objects are observable in a thermal image. Thermalcameras generally consist of five primary components: 1) opticscomprising specialized focal plane arrays (FPAs) that respond to definedwavelengths of the infrared range of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum(≈7.5 to ≈14 μm); 2) a detector for detecting radiation in the infraredrange; 3) an amplifier for amplifying the received radiation; 4) adisplay for viewing the captured images; and 5) signal processinghardware such as: a CPU, memory, storage, for performing mathematicalalgorithms which interpret data and construct an IR image. Commonthermal imaging systems include: InSb, InGaAs, HgCdTe, and QWIP FPA.Newer technologies utilize an uncooled Microbolometer as FPA sensors.Thermal cameras offer a relatively large dynamic range of temperaturesettings. However, for the purposes hereof, it is preferable that thecamera's temperature range be relatively small centered around subject'sbody surface temperature so that small temperature variations areamplified in terms of pixel color changes to provide a better measure oftemperature variation. The reader is directed to any of a variety oftexts on thermal imaging including: “Infrared Thermal Imaging:Fundamentals, Research and Applications”, Michael Vollmer, Klaus PeterMöllmann, Wiley-VCH; 1^(st) Ed. (2010) ISBN-13: 978-3527407170, which isincorporated herein in its entirety by reference. A method for enhancinga spatial resolution of a thermal image or a portion thereof, isdisclosed in: “Processing A Video For Spatial And Temporal MagnificationWith Minimized Image Degradation”, U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/708,125, by Mestha et al., which is incorporated herein in itsentirety by reference. Thermal cameras are readily available in variousstreams of commerce. Thermal images are captured using a thermal imagingsystem.

A “thermal image” is an image captured using a thermal camera. Eachthermal image comprises a plurality of pixels with each pixel having anassociated corresponding temperature value. A thermal image of asubject's breasts is shown in the visualization screen 201 of FIG. 2.The thermal images are received by the workstation for manipulation byvarious aspects of the functionality of the software interface disclosedherein. Although the thermal images herein are shown in black/white, itshould be appreciated that thermal images are in color.

“Receiving a thermal image” is intended to be widely construed andincludes: retrieving, receiving, capturing, acquiring, or otherwiseobtaining a thermal image or a video comprising a plurality of thermalimages for processing in accordance with the methods disclosed herein.Thermal images can be retrieved from a memory or storage device of thethermal imaging device, or obtained from a remote device over a network.Thermal images may be retrieved from a media such as a CDROM or DVD.Thermal images may be downloaded from a web-based system which makessuch images available for processing. Thermal images can also beretrieved using an application such as those which are widely availablefor handheld cellular devices and processed on the user's cellphone orother handheld computing device such as an iPad or tablet. Thermalimages are of a breast area of a subject.

A “breast area of the subject” encompasses tissue of the breast itselfand may further include portions of surrounding non-breast tissue as areneeded for breast cancer screening and detection. Regions of breasttissue are automatically or manually identified in the thermal image foranalysis.

A “software interface tool” is a composite of user-selectablefunctionality displayed on a display device such as a touchscreendisplay of a computer workstation. FIG. 2 shows one example embodimentof the present software interface tool 200. Various embodiments of thepresent software interface tool comprise a visualization screen, atemperature bar, and a plurality of selectable software objects.

A “VISUALIZATION SCREEN” refers to a portion of the software interfacetool (shown at 201) wherein at least one thermal image of at least onebreast of a subject is displayed.

A “TEMPERATURE BAR” refers to a portion of the present softwareinterface tool (shown at 202) wherein temperature values which areassociated with the various colors comprising the displayed thermalimage are shown.

A “selectable software object” refers to a graphical widget which cantake a variety of forms such as, for instance, a button, a pull-downmenu, a slidable bar, and the like, as are commonly known and widelyunderstood in the software arts. Specialized machine readable/executableprogram instructions associated with a particular “button” is designedto perform functionality represented by that particular widget. Onceselected by a user clicking a mouse thereon or manually touching thatparticular button on a touch-sensitive display device, causes a centralprocessor unit (CPU) to retrieve those program instructions from memoryand execute those instructions.

The “LOAD” object (shown at 203) is a widget which, when selected,effectuates a display of an infrared image on the visualization screen201. Pixels in the image having a highest temperature value aredisplayed in first color and pixels having a lowest temperature aredisplayed in second color. Pixels with temperature values between thelowest and highest temperatures are displayed in gradations of colorbetween the first and second colors. Temperature values associated withthe displayed colors appear on the temperature bar 202.

A “2D ISOTHERM” object 204 is a widget which, when selected, effectuatesa 2D display of contour lines on the visualization screen 201. Thecontour lines circumscribe or “bound” various groups of colored pixelsin the image which have substantially similar temperature values.

A “3D ISOTHERM” object 205 is a widget which, when selected, effectuatesa 3D display of contour lines on the visualization screen 201 wherein anincreasing height of the contour lines is associated with an increase intemperature values of pixels in the displayed thermal image.

A “CROPPING” object 206 enables a user to selectively crop any portionof the displayed thermal image.

A “ZOOMING” object 207 enables a user to enlarge any portion of thedisplayed image. In one embodiment, zooming is performed using anembodiment of the image enhancement method disclosed in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 13/708,125 entitled: “Processing A Video ForSpatial And Temporal Magnification With Minimized Image Degradation”, byMestha et al. (Allowed 11-25-2014).

A “NORMALIZATION” object 208 normalizes temperatures within anidentified region of interest to a highest temperature or,alternatively, to a lowest temperature value.

A “SAVE” object 209 enables the user to save any portion of thedisplayed image to a memory or storage device.

A “TEXT AREA” at 210 wherein messages are displayed for the user suchas, for example, a message indicating a probability that the tissue inthe identified region of interest can be categorized as being any ofthermal BIRADs category, thermos-biological category, non-cancerouscategory, suspicious of being cancerous category, and cancerouscategory.

A “FRAME SLIDER” object 220 enables a user to move forward and backwardwithin a video such that a different image frame is displayed on thevisualization screen.

An “ISOTHERM GRADATION” object 221 effectuates the selection of atemperature gradation for the displayed contour lines.

A “GRADATION” object 222 effectuates the selection of a temperaturegradation for the displayed contour lines.

A “REGION OF INTEREST (ROI)” object 230 enables either the manual orautomatic selection of at least one region of interest in the displayedthermal image. A region of interest can be identified in a thermal imageusing any of a wide array of image processing techniques which include,for example, object identification, pattern recognition, pixelclassification, color, texture, spatial relationships, and/or spatialfeatures. A region of interest can be manually identified using, forinstance, a mouse to draw a rubber-band box around a region of interest.One example region of interest, which substantially comprises the rightand left breasts of the subject, is shown at 300 in FIG. 3. FIG. 4 showsthe subject's left breast having been selected as a region of interest.FIG. 5 shows a region of interest substantially comprising the subject'sleft breast having been manually selected by a user. Example displayed2D contour lines of the regions of interest of FIG. 3 are shown in FIG.6. Example displayed 2D contour lines of the regions of interest of FIG.5 are shown in FIG. 7. It should be appreciated that, in the absence ofa selection of a region of interest, the entire thermal image becomesthe region of interest by default.

A “RIGHT BREAST (RB)” object 231 enables the automatic identification ofthe right breast in the displayed image.

A “LEFT BREAST (LB)” object 232 enables the automatic identification andsegmentation of the left breast in the displayed image.

A “RIGHT AXILLA (RA)” object 233 and a “LEFT AXILLA (LA)” object 234effectuate automatic selection of a right and left regions of interest;specifically adjacent tissues containing lymph nodes.

A “VIEW ANGLE” object 235 enables a user to change a view angle of thedisplayed thermal image.

A “VISUAL ENHANCEMENT” object 236 enables a region of tissue to bevisually enhanced by being displayed prominently in the displayedthermal image by subduing surrounding tissue. FIG. 8 shows an area ofthe subject's left breast in the contour image of FIG. 6 having beenvisually enhanced by highlighting the desired area and subduing areasoutside that area.

A “SCREENING” object 237 effectuates the manual or automatic screeningof the breast tissue in the identified region of interest for thepresence of cancerous tissue, the absence of cancerous tissue, or thesuspicion of cancerous tissue. In one embodiment, specialized machinereadable/executable program instructions associated with the screeningobject effectuates a detection protocol which includes any combinationof: a histogram distance method, fractal dimensions, texture based, deeplearning, machine learning, neural network, bio heat-based, frequencydomain based, 2D and 3D.

It should be appreciated that the steps of “determining”, “analyzing”,“identifying”, “receiving”, “processing”, “selecting”, “performing” andthe like, as used herein, include the application of various signalprocessing and mathematical operations applied to data and signals,according to any specific context or for any specific purpose. It shouldbe appreciated that such steps may be facilitated or otherwiseeffectuated by a microprocessor executing machine readable programinstructions retrieved from a memory or storage device.

Flow Chart of Tumor Detection

Reference is now being made to the flow diagram of FIG. 9 whichillustrates one example embodiment of a method for detecting tumorousbreast tissue using a thermal image. Flow processing starts at steps 900and immediately proceeds to step 901.

At step 901, receive a thermal image of exposed breast skin tissue of asubject being screened for breast cancer. The thermal image has beencaptured by a thermal imaging system. The received thermal image can bedisplayed on the visualization interface by a user having selected theLOAD object 203 of the software interface tool of FIG. 2. One examplethermal imaging system is shown and discussed with respect to theexample embodiment of FIG. 1. Example thermal images are shown in FIGS.2-8.

At step 902, select a region of interest (ROI) in the thermal image.Example selected regions of interest are shown in FIGS. 3-5. A region ofinterest can be manually or automatically selected by a user selectionof the ROI object 230 of the software interface tool of FIG. 2. Thefollowing functionality would be implemented in response to a userhaving selected the SCREENING object 237 of the software interface toolof FIG. 2.

At step 903, determine a percentage of pixels p₁ within the selectedregion of interest which have a temperature T_(pixel) ¹ such thatT₁≦T_(pixel) ¹≦T₂. In this embodiment, T₁=T_(max), where T_(max) is amaximum temperature of the subject, and T₂=└T₁┘−1° C.

At step 904, determine a percentage of pixels p₂ within the selected ROIwith a second temperature T_(pixel) ² such that T₃≦T_(pixel) ². In thisembodiment, T₃=T_(avg)+(T_(max)−T_(avg))/3, where T_(avg) is an averagetemperature of the subject.

At step 905, determining a ratio

p₃ = P_(edge)/P_(block),where P_(edge) is a number of pixels around a border of a suspectedtumor within the selected region, and P_(block) is a number of pixels inthe perimeter of the selected region.

At step 906, using a decision fusion rule R to determine that tissuewithin the selected region of interest is one of: cancerous,non-cancerous, or suspicious of being cancerous.

At step 907, communicate the determined result to a medicalprofessional. The determination may also be communicated to a memory, astorage device, a display device, a handheld wireless device, a handheldcellular device, and/or a remote device over a network. Thereafter, inthis embodiment, further processing stops.

It should also be appreciated that the flow diagrams depicted herein areillustrative. One or more of the operations may be performed in adiffering order. Other operations may be added, modified, enhanced, orconsolidated. Variations thereof are intended to fall within the scopeof the appended claims.

Example Special Purpose Computer

Reference is now being made to FIG. 10 which is a functional blockdiagram of a special purpose computer system 1000 for implementingvarious aspect of the present software interface tool of FIG. 2 and thetumor detection method shown and described with respect to the flowdiagram of FIG. 9. Such a special purpose processor is capable ofexecuting machine executable program instructions and may comprise anyof a micro-processor, micro-controller, ASIC, electronic circuit, or anycombination thereof.

In FIG. 10, communications bus 1002 is in communication with a centralprocessing unit (CPU) 1004 capable of executing machine readable programinstructions for performing any of the calculations, comparisons,logical operations, and other program instructions for performing any ofthe steps described above with respect to the flow diagrams andillustrated embodiments hereof. Processor 1004 is in communication withmemory (ROM) 1006 and memory (RAM) 1008 which, collectively, constituteexample storage devices. Such memory may be used to store machinereadable program instructions and other program data and results tosufficient to carry out any of the functionality described herein. Diskcontroller 1010 interfaces with one or more storage devices 1014 whichmay comprise external memory, zip drives, flash memory, USB drives, orother devices such as CD-ROM drive 1012 and floppy drive 1016. Storagedevice stores machine executable program instructions for executing themethods hereof. Such storage devices may be used to implement a databasewherein various records are stored. Display interface 1018 effectuatesthe display of information on display 1020 in various formats such as,for instance, audio, graphic, text, and the like. Interface 1024effectuates a communication via keyboard 1026 and mouse 1028,collectively a graphical user interface. Such a graphical user interfaceis useful for a user to enter information about any of the displayedinformation in accordance with various embodiments hereof. Communicationwith external devices may occur using example communication port(s)1022. Such ports may be placed in communication with any of the examplenetworks shown and described herein, such as the Internet or anintranet, either by direct (wired) link or wireless link. Examplecommunication ports include modems, network cards such as an Ethernetcard, routers, a PCMCIA slot and card, USB ports, and the like, capableof transferring data from one device to another. Software and data istransferred via the communication ports in the form of signals which maybe any of digital, analog, electromagnetic, optical, infrared, or othersignals capable of being transmitted and/or received by thecommunications interface. Such signals may be implemented using, forexample, a wire, cable, fiber optic, phone line, cellular link, RF, orother signal transmission means presently known in the arts or whichhave been subsequently developed.

The teachings hereof can be implemented in hardware or software usingany known or later developed systems, structures, devices, and/orsoftware by those skilled in the applicable art without undueexperimentation from the functional description provided herein with ageneral knowledge of the relevant arts. Moreover, the methods hereof canbe implemented as a routine embedded on a personal computer or as aresource residing on a server or workstation, such as a routine embeddedin a plug-in, a driver, or the like. The teachings hereof may bepartially or fully implemented in software using object orobject-oriented software development environments that provide portablesource code that can be used on a variety of computer, workstation,server, network, or other hardware platforms. One or more of thecapabilities hereof can be emulated in a virtual environment as providedby an operating system and other specialized programs such Windows orJava.

One or more aspects of the teaching disclosed herein are intended to beincorporated in an article of manufacture, including one or morecomputer program products, having computer usable or machine readablemedia. The article of manufacture may be included on at least onestorage device readable by a machine architecture embodying executableprogram instructions capable of performing the methods described herein.The article of manufacture may be shipped, sold, leased, or otherwiseprovided separately either alone or as part of an add-on, update,upgrade, or product suite.

It will be appreciated that the above-disclosed and other features andfunctionality, or alternatives thereof, may be desirably combined intomany other different systems or applications. As such, various presentlyunforeseen or unanticipated alternatives, modifications, variations, orimprovements therein may become apparent and/or subsequently made bythose skilled in the art which are also intended to be encompassed bythe following claims. Accordingly, the embodiments set forth above areillustrative and not limiting. Changes to the above-describedembodiments may be made without departing from the spirit and scope ofthe invention.

The teachings of any printed publications including patents and patentapplications, are each separately hereby incorporated by reference intheir entirety.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for detecting tumorous breast tissueusing a thermal image, the method comprising: receiving a thermal imageof breast skin tissue of a subject being screened for breast cancer,said thermal image having been captured by a thermal imaging system andcomprising a plurality of pixels each having a corresponding temperaturevalue; selecting at least one region of interest in said thermal image;determining a percentage of pixels p₁ in said selected region with atemperature T_(pixel) ¹, where T₁≦T_(pixel) ¹≦T₂; determining a ratiop₃ = P_(edge)/P_(block), where P_(edge) is a number of pixels around aborder of a suspected tumor within said selected region, and P_(block)is a number of pixels in a perimeter of said selected region; and usinga decision fusion rule R to determine that tissue in said region ofinterest is one of: cancerous, non-cancerous, or suspicious of beingcancerous.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein said thermal imaging systemis any of: a single-band infrared camera, a multi-band infrared camerain the thermal range, and a hyperspectral infrared camera in the thermalrange.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein said decision fusion rule R isbased on any combination of: R₁,R₂,R₃, where: R₁=(p₁≧Threshold₁),R₂=(p₂≧Threshold₂), and R₃=(p₃≧Threshold₃).
 4. The method of claim 3,wherein Threshold₁, Threshold₂, Threshold₃ comprise user-definedthreshold values based on any combination of: tumor characteristics,subject age, race, sex, and medical history.
 5. The method of claim 3,where said decision fusion rule, R, comprises any of: a majority rule of(R₁, R₂, R₃), and a weighted sum of (R₁, R₂, R₃).
 6. The method of claim1, wherein T₁=T_(max), where T_(max) is a maximum temperature of saidsubject, and T₂=└T₁┘−1° C.
 7. The method of claim 1, whereinT₃=T_(avg)+(T_(max)−T_(avg))/3, where T_(max) is a maximum temperatureof said subject, and T_(avg) is an average temperature of said subject.8. The method of claim 1, wherein, in response to having performedscreening, displaying a message indicating a probability that tissue insaid region of interest can be categorized as being in any category of:thermal BIRADs category, thermo-biological category, non-cancerouscategory, suspicious of being cancerous category, and cancerouscategory.
 9. The method of claim 1, further comprising communicating anyof said determinations to any of: a medical staff, a medical datarepository, a memory, a storage device, a display device, a handheldwireless device, a handheld cellular device, and a remote device over anetwork.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein, in response to adetermination that tissue in said selected region is cancerous,performing any of: initiating an alert, and signaling a medicalprofessional.
 11. A system for detecting tumorous breast tissue using athermal image, the system comprising: a memory and a storage device; anda microprocessor in communication with said memory and storage device,said microprocessor executing machine readable program instructions forperforming: receiving a thermal image of breast skin tissue of a subjectbeing screened for breast cancer, said thermal image having beencaptured by a thermal imaging system and comprising a plurality ofpixels each having a corresponding temperature value; selecting at leastone region of interest in said thermal image; determining a percentageof pixels p₁ in said selected region having a first temperatureT_(pixel) ¹, where T₁≦_(pixel) ¹≦T₂; determining a ratiop₃ = P_(edge)/P_(block), where P_(edge) is a number of pixels around aborder of a suspected tumor within said selected region, and P_(block)is a number of pixels in a perimeter of said selected region; and usinga selected decision fusion rule, R, to determine that tissue within saidregion of interest is one of: cancerous, non-cancerous, or suspicious ofbeing cancerous.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein said thermalimaging system is any of: a single-band infrared camera, a multi-bandinfrared camera in the thermal range, and a hyperspectral infraredcamera in the thermal range.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein saiddecision fusion rule R is based on any combination of: R₁,R₂,R₃, where:R₁=(p₁≧Threshold₁), R₂=(p₂≧Threshold₂), and R₃=(p₃≧Threshold₃).
 14. Thesystem of claim 13, wherein Threshold₁, Threshold₂, Threshold₃ compriseuser-defined threshold values based on any combination of: tumorcharacteristics, subject age, race, sex, and medical history.
 15. Thesystem of claim 13, where said decision fusion rule, R, comprises anyof: a majority rule of (R₁, R₂, R₃), and a weighted sum of (R₁, R₂, R₃).16. The system of claim 11, wherein T₁=T_(max), where T_(max) is amaximum temperature of said subject, and T₂=└T₁┘−1° C.
 17. The system ofclaim 11, wherein T₃=T_(avg)+(T_(max)−T_(avg))/3, where T_(max) is amaximum temperature of said subject, and T_(avg) is an averagetemperature of said subject.
 18. The system of claim 11, wherein, inresponse to having performed screening, displaying a message indicatinga probability that tissue in said region of interest can be categorizedas being in any category of: thermal BIRADs category, thermo-biologicalcategory, non-cancerous category, suspicious of being cancerouscategory, and cancerous category.
 19. The system of claim 11, furthercomprising communicating any of said determinations to any of: a medicalstaff, a medical data repository, a memory, a storage device, a displaydevice, a handheld wireless device, a handheld cellular device, and aremote device over a network.
 20. The system of claim 11, wherein, inresponse to a determination that tissue in said selected region iscancerous, performing any of: initiating an alert, and signaling amedical professional.